So a lot of people were annoyed at Tyrande being a hothead in 5.1.

As far as I'm aware, Tyrande basically just wants to throw soldiers at the Horde for...no specified reason in the wilds. But Varian comes along and explains it's likely to be a trap blah blah.

Now loads of people, NElf fans especially, are annoyed because they think it was done to make Varian look better. (Even though he's still like a human/wolf god...-thing-)

I reckon, now hear me out, there was a mix-up in the script. -Varian- was supposed to be the hothead in this scene, being the anti-Horde he is. And Tyrande, being a several thousand year old being and a priest, was meant to be the reasonable one. Simple really, someone in the editing of the VA script must have gotten the names in the wrong places and presto, muddled up scene. They probably didn't go back and change it either due to time constraints, or the scene was already animated and implemented and released before it could be fixed. Changing it now way post-release would look...awkward, right?

And Tyrande, being a several thousand year old being and a priest, was meant to be the reasonable one.

Her age did not make her mellow and careful. It did the opposite.

From Warcraft 3:
Furion: You've changed, Tyrande. There is little mercy left in you.
Tyrande: I have not had the luxury of sleeping through thousands of years of turmoil.
Furion: If your eternal vigil has hardened you, my love, it must be part of your goddess' plan.

She hates the orcs, and she considers killing a very proper way to solve problems.

I'd say it was like that for the one reason. Making Varian look good.
They want him as the High King of the Alliance, and therefore he has to be the best leader.
So yeah, twisting characters lore/personalities to fit into this new story is a really bad ploy on Blizzard part and I hate them for it.

We stopped searching for monsters under our beds when we realized that they were inside us.

Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Night elf fans seem to think even though Night elves have existed lore-wise for tens of thousands of years, they've been part of WoW for that long and act like they werent added in Warcraft 3...

Heres a timeline of Tyrandes behaviour since she was added:

1. Reckless, she freed Illidan killing alot of wardens in the process, she attacked the Humans and Orcs simply because they were outsiders and without the Human Paladin she killed the Undead and Demons demolished/corrupted a large amount of forest

2. Uselessness, mainly the fault of blizzard by forgetting her for 2 expacs then adding her into some books in which shes shown to be a big wuss that doesnt really do much at all, sort of clings to malfurion and makes him look good

3. Reckless again, "A little Patience" scenario

Originally Posted by Zombiebob

I'm still waiting on someone to tell me where all these people that suddenly care about Warrior balance were during Cataclysm when they were blow up dolls with plate armor on.

Originally Posted by cutterx2202

Stop complaining to solve your lack of ability, and start reading and practicing to gain ability. Stop trying to bring people down to your level instead of striving to raise yours.

When 4.3 came out and I heard the terrible accent I had to double check the VA, and to my knowledge it is the same as before, though the accent was far to strong, Tyrande from Wc3 did have an accent and most people seem to not recall it or ignore it. Yes, Tyrande was rash, hot headed and quick to act but Blizzard seems to have tried to fix this and instead made her too rash and hot headed and it came off as whiny, sloppy and overall unimpressive. I agree that many people seem to have this ideal Tyrande in their minds, kind of a rose colored glasses situation. Yet Blizzards statement in the interviews shows that they full well wanted Tyrande to summit to Varian as Varian becomes the High King, completed disregarding her character in the scenario.

One of my favourite quotes from Wc3 is when Malfurion, her husband (dammit Knaak...) tries to stop her from freeing Illidan and her response is "Only the GODESS may forbid me!". Now I guess its only the Goddess or Varian who can forbid her...

Found this little snippet on Wowpedia (only looking at it as its "official" Blizzard lore);
In recent years, Tyrande seems to have developed a more amiable and open-minded personality, perhaps due to her exposure and interaction with the races of the Alliance. Her balance in judgment, wisdom and strong intuition provide her with any caution and foresight needed before taking decisions that could affect her people and the Alliance as a whole.

4.3 also brought with it the god awful terrible model that is now present on her, the hair is just nothing like the several books or wc3 models/art described. Though Blizzard fixed Illidans and Azshara's model they did not fix Tyrande as it goes with the battle mosaic so I'm told. Even the TCG printed her with the midnight blue hair shortly after 4.3's release.

Everything she's been portrayed as has been perfectly in line for her character.

You mean back during her short story, when she was cripplingly emotional?
Or during 5.1, when she was whining about not being allowed to attack?

Neither fits with the Tyrande I remember, who told Malfurion to go swivel and went and did what she thought was best.

And that's saying nothing of the fact that the former General of the Sentinels--an army of formerly-immortal warriors trained to utilise stealth and guerilla warfare--apparently forgot basic tactics in favour of "fuck it, charge!" just to push the "isn't Varian awesome?" shit we're getting this expansion.

Last edited by Blayze; 2012-12-13 at 10:29 AM.

It became clear that it wasn’t realistic to try to get the audience back to being more hardcore, as it had been in the past. -- Tom Chilton

I doubt it was to make Varian look good. I doubt it was a script mess-up, though it was likely a bad decision on Blizzard's part, trying to blaze through a personality change and change Tyrande's instantly.
She's done her fair share of reckless things, but most of them were done during the War of the Ancients time-era, meaning she was still young. NElf fans can have their nerdrage; no matter how careful I would be, if my people were the primary targets of a single orc's dick-sucking attitude, I'd want to make him burn in hell too. =P

They ruined Tyrande. I have hopes ill learn how to use photoshop and try to improve her model and send my creation to blizzard so many times til they look at it, her voice is something horrible aswell, i mean common, even tho blizz made elves the evolution of trolls it doesnt mean they have to talk like ones, Tyrandes voice actress might be the same but god knows what that actress is eating to sound like troll. Overall, I hope Tyrande will get some love in future, because Blizz job with her is not done yet

Here's a thought:
Night Elves used to reach ages of hundreds, and even tens of thousands, of years. Everyone seems to think that that is evidence that they are wise creatures...
Perhaps they're not. I mean: A few world trees and some sunwell stuff should probably point out that the Elves in general may not be the wisest of the sentient species on Azeroth. The fact that they lived for very long times does in no way indicate that they are very intelligent. Or even experienced. Let alone 'wise.' The idea that wisdom comes with age, and therefore, age brings wisdom, is a purely human notion because, in humans, it often works like that. But that is because of the way that the human brain develops, over time. The Elven brain might not have the same manner of development.

From what I've seen from the Night Elves so far, rash decisionmaking is quite an elven thing to do. Reckless abandon isn't too uncommon among the Elves at all. So Tyrande didn't act out of character, if you ask me.

Warcraft 3: a proud warrior-priestess, leader of her race, letting nothing push her aside, not even Malfurion. She was much a "the end justifies the means" kind of person, which is why she freed Illidan, as the end (defeating the Legion) justified that and her killing some wardens. Quite an experienced fighter and commander, leading guerilla parties easily through a terrain she knows best.

War of the Ancients book (Knaak): a novice priestess in love with both Malfurion and Illidan, mostly Malfurion though. Damsell in distress, she fails time and time again at doing much of anything. She discovers having some healing powers and is promoted to High Priestess. Modest in nature and caring. This one is a bit out of the picture, as it happened 10k years ago, so might fit with personality. But then, you need to take to mind something, Tyrande wasn't young even then. Elves now live aroung 900-1100 years after no more Well, and if I remember right, she was already about 3k years at the Well of Eternity thing... so suddenly the young and a kind of Bella of Twilight Saga doesn't really fit her anymore, does it? This is one of the reason her description was critiqued so much there, he treated Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan like teenagers.

Stormrage (Knaak): a warrior priestess, leader of her race, sent on a quest to save her beloved. Once again a "the end justifies the means" kind of person. However, not really a very experienced fighter, as she's pushed back several times by random orc lady and some other random creeps. After at start of story we hear how she trained every day, now she's defeated by every mob she encounters? So here the major lines were put well... but then she was made to look weak to make Malfurion look like the saviour... which made her look dumb. Especially that she fights with a glaive instead of a bow, though we know she's better with a bow.

Wolfheart (Knaak): a warrior priestess, leader of her race, letting nothing push her aside since she fought a larger enemy corps. Once again, an "the end justifies the means" person", as she thinks about burning the forest of Ashenvale because at least she'd kill the orcs then. She's here mostly as commander, and she kind of gets hit with an arrow. To kind of let Varian take the reigns as she can't lead anymore. So this is all a plot to bring Varian into the picture.

Her story: A caring mother who'd go to any lenght to save her adopted daughter. Until now it seems to fit the idea of a priestess and a caring person which was put forward in WC3 with her saving Malfurion and in Stormrage with her planning to save Malfurion. But wait... She comes there and almost dies... hold on... to be the damsell in distress and be saved by Malfurion... yea, ok. I don't think I need to say anything anymore.

MoP: A warrior, leader of her race, arrogant and full of herself, wanting to attack something head-on, exactly like the Horde said night elves are! Wait... haven't we been talking about guerilla warfare all along the other stories and her leading small groups in harassing enemies or trying to get an advantage (Malfurion, horn of waking druids, getting to World Tree first and letting everyone know, getting past demons, getting to Malfurion, getting to Well of Eternity etc.) So... where's that guerilla leader? The one who layed some traps and attacked and ran or had a distinct advantage before attacking in first place? Well it's there, it's called Varian.

How do I see the "true" Tyrande after all this?
-a warrior-priestess, with decisive decisions and yet caring for those close to her
-a commander of her people, a guerilla fighter, someone who fights from shadow or tries to get an advantage over the enemy before taking them
-an end justifies the means person, for whom victory is worth more then what is done along the way (kind of like Illidan here in a way)
-a ok archer (in no books or game is her shooting praised, however she prefers it to melee combat, which means she's better at it), but not a very good melee fighter which is why she trains a lot(in most melee confrontations she got defeated), and a good healer thanks to Elune(here is where she excels, and is able to use these powers as magic against her foes too with starfall wiping a full army of undead and so on), a good commander in setting up ambushes and carring them on.
-a person who might seem brash, but that's just because she's sure of herself and knows the goal.

Overall her strenghts are these: she's a good guerilla commander, a caring person, she's determined and amazing with the magic of Elune.
Her weaknesses are these: she's bad in melee(though she trains), she's a "the end justifies the means" person which puts her in line with many villans, she is unmoving in her decisions.

I made this using the descriptions along the books and such, removing the parts that were inconsistent from one book to another. Now if you look at that and compare it to how she was in-game... she was nothing like that.
-she was a bad commander, so one of her strenghts was turned to weakness, furthermore she forgat everything guerilla tactics
-she doesn't give a shit about anyone inside or outside the temple, once again, her caring gone
-she doesn't fight at all, so no comment on magic
-you might say she's still a "the end justifies the means" type of person... but no. You forgat that Tyrande only acted like that when the stakes were really high and didn't when they were not. This is why she focused on getting to Mount Hyjal when the stakes were high but left Illidan to run when Maiev was chasing him because they were not anymore, as she thought of Illidan as a sort of vigilante, bad by law but ok in general. Or why for example she fought the orcs and humans before the Medivh made them meet yet she accepted the Highbourne back even if her race had a quarrel with them.
In this case, the orcs were already in the temple, so they were already caught. The stakes were not high, so the end did not justify the means. She could have taken her time and made a trap or something, yet she did not... because Varian did it, because he was made to look better then her to justify Blizzard's wish of putting him High King.
And here is the problem.

From Warcraft 3:
Furion: You've changed, Tyrande. There is little mercy left in you.
Tyrande: I have not had the luxury of sleeping through thousands of years of turmoil.
Furion: If your eternal vigil has hardened you, my love, it must be part of your goddess' plan.

She hates the orcs, and she considers killing a very proper way to solve problems.

Very true, also horde attacks into Ashenvale during cata has further driven her towards hatred. Its often only Furion who keeps her in check.